Election of 1860- An Election Based on Slavery

This past unit in history, we have continued studying the events leading up to the Civil War and how they related to slavery, and learned how the election of 1860 was affected by these events.  Each of the representatives running for president had a different opinion on slavery.  As the democratic party couldn't decide on only one nominee, they chose three different people, each of whom ran against each other and the one republican member.  Lincoln, Douglas, Breckenridge, and Bell were all very different, but Abraham Lincoln won the election with around 40% of the total votes.  To figure out why the election results were representative of the deep divisions over slavery, I made a video on Educreations, which explains the events leading up to the Civil War and how they affected these results.  The votes of the election varied because there were more candidates than usual, and there were more candidates because the political parties couldn't decide on one person to represent them.  People in the United States had varying views on slavery during this time period, and after the election, the Civil War began because so much tension had arisen between the states during the election.

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